Year 4, December 23rd-24th, 2019: The Spirit Has Come!

Well, you can take that both ways, the Holy Spirit and the Christmas Spirit! We are all finally getting excited! I know, I know, it's mostly about giving and receiving gifts no matter how hard we try to focus on Jesus. And while that bothers me on one hand, I'm also so excited to see the look on my kids' faces, too. And of course all the traditions and what not. Today was "get all the last minute things done" so I don't have to go to a single store tomorrow. I went to the Dollar Store for a few things, the dry cleaners, and then CVS to pick up prints of our Christmas photo we took yesterday. Then I came home and finished the Christmas cards. We didn't have enough time to take them to the post office, so we'll have to do that first thing in the morning. Or rather, I will send Jared to do it.

Then we had a kid Christmas party at the Smith's. We had two motives, one for the kids to hang out and two for the moms to hang out and figure out a time when we could start our Bible study like the guys have in the Bible Barn. Yes, that's what Jim's new "man cave" is called, the Bible Barn. Love it! And it's us ladies that are the wives of these guys that have been meeting every Tuesday with Jared. So, we finally have a small group that has organically started. Woot! Woot! The guys will meet weekly on Tuesdays and the women will meet weekly on Mondays or Wednesdays. And then on the last Friday of the month, we'll have a pitch in with the kids and call it "life group."  Now, it's just us three couples so far, which I like because it means we are starting from the ground up. We women are going to use the same book the guys have been sort of using and that Gary is going to use with Justin and Benaiah next year. It's called Core 52, so 52 weekly studies on basic topics in the Bible. Adrienne said she knows nothing about basic Bible theology and history and such. Erica grew up as a Lutheran and does have some background as well. It will be interesting because Erica is super intelligent and loves history, so I'll have to bring my A game as well. And if we have questions, the guys aren't far, lol. Erica also babysits kids and sometimes kids from church, so two of our church friends that are near Abishai's age were there, too. Derrick older siblings weren't there, but Justin and Keturah did just fine. I think there were 8 kids and a baby. Sweet! We played a couple of games and the kids loaded up on sweets. Jared and Jim got to hang out as well. Andrew was home with Conner, who has been very sick lately. Actually most of the kids have the same cough Abishai, Jared, and I have, so it's going around and around and around to everyone. Ugh.  It was a lovely time! Time for home.

Oh, Jared had a half day at work, so that's why he came.  Benaiah worked a day shift, so he was home for the evening and Ava stopped by for a little bit. We watched Episode 6 of Star Wars, which Jared tweeted was his favorite of all the Star Wars movies. The ending of 6 really is a great ending and there didn't need to be more movies before and afterwards. The originals are the best. But, producers and writers are greedy, so away they go with the franchise, sigh.

So, it was a very full day, a little chaotic when 4 packages arrived at various times today starting at 7 am! And none of them were the ones I wanted. Oh well. I had to keep telling everyone to just back off because I had to focus and spend all my mental energy on moving forward and not getting overwhelmed. Same thing will happen tomorrow. So when Jared tweaked his back so bad that he couldn't walk without major pain, I had very little patience, so to say, to listen. Can I help him? No. Will he listen to my suggestions? No. So why do I need to listen? Because it's nice to listen to someone else's problems right? But not on days I have to focus.hard on tasks or we'll get behind. Speaking of, I should get a move on. I need to do a few other things tonight like organize the gifts for wrapping so the kids can help with some of them. I'll watch some videos while I do it. I almost fell asleep during Star Wars, so I know I'm exhausted. We'll see if I can keep up with the blog or not. One day at a time, right?

Our new motto for 2020 at Indian Creek. Hm,...

Uh, not nice.

They are melting! And looking a bit strange! Abishai thinks they are the Daddy BB-8 and the brother BB-8, which doesn't quite work.

Sunrise on the snow, my favorite! Sparkly!

"I'm Yoda. I hide in my cave and sleep (fake snores)." We were all Yodas today, hehehe.

It's raining inside, Mommy! Hurry! Get under my umbrella (after seeing the rain at Yoda's place in Episode 5).

I'll help make a smoothie! We all need more vitamin C. I left my amount in there and added my new chocolate protein poweder and it was yummy. Just various berries, a banana, and apple juice.  No dairy, no yogurt.

I do my school Mommy! I'm going to take full advantage of this and introduce new "school" play things next month.

#truth but NH and PEI can be the same way!

I want to eat this cookie, but I don't want to eat my friend! Keturah explained that the cookie will go to cookie heaven and Abishai was ok with that. Aw, he's such a sensitive guy!

We put our sign out! I haven't been to the website yet, but it's there. There's 3 of them on the other street, hehehe.

My little helper filling the toilet paper roll holders.

Just a random gift from a great aunt, Aunt Stefanie!

They are here already! Just in time to wrap them and put them under the tree! I went for printed tickets so I could have the stubs. Front row, baby!

They actually wanted to pose with the sign!

Cuteness!

Party at the Smith's house watching the new animated Grinch movie and playing cars with our favorite friends.

Ready to play the saran wrap ball game where you have to unwrap the saran wrap and candy falls out! In order we have Justin, Abishai, Keturah, Rosie, Lauran, Erica's youngest, Derrick, Kendall with Mrs. Adrienne being the referee.

It only took a little bit of time for the kids to get a hang of it, and it went around the circle many times. It gets passed when the next person rolls doubles on some dice. You keep what candy fell out on your turn.

After the first round, Rosie only wanted to eat chocolate.  Aww, I love how Erica was watching two of the kids from church that we know!

Roll that dice!

I think Keturah ended up rolling the dice for Abishai most of the time.

So much loot!

Little guys and big guys.

The next game was having to suck up marshmallows to the bottom of a straw and transfer them into the cup.  The little kids did get a few of them transferred!

It's a tie! 4 marshmallows each!

Keturah 20, Kendall 19, and then on her next round, Kendall got 23!

We all thought Keturah was going to suck up her hair!

I think Derrick got 23 and Lauren got 12, but great try!

Abishai loves their dog Lucky because she's small and she plays! He knows exactly where her toys are and how to get her going! I won't post this odd picture, because it looks like Lucky's head is chopped off from her body. She goes so fast!

Abishai ate two cups of marshmallows, no joke!

Abishai finished the bowl!

Just hanging out watching movies.

Sad BB-8's sitting next to their very tall creator, Justin.

And she has the best boyfriend ever according to him! Hehehehe!

Benaiah thinks they will rank in the top 10 for sales for the nation this year!

I play very quietly, Mommy.

Always playing nearby.

I don't have anything, just using a saw with bare feet and no safety goggles. Mom's not impressed and she's not happy with Dad either. Plus, I want my washing machine back!

Working on some special wrapping for a certain little brother.

This is what you get when you cut with a saw in bare feet: a sawdusted footprint.

Interesting. I didn't know that. And yes I did insist that we did. Best decision this week.  The kids haven't had their other usual screen time either.

Benaiah put his special phone kit together using a sautering iron.

Abishai loved the Ewoks' antics, as do I. I can't wait to show him the Ewok Adventure, a Star Wars spin off movie that came out right after this one.  He also spent a lot of time cuddling too.

His and hers almost matching Nikes slides.

Aw, Ava got him some new sleeping pants! They are so cute! Something Christmasy from Old Navy. They are an XL and he says they are a bit big. We'll see how they are after they are washed, but now we know what size to look for when I have more time and money!

Boy with his project.

Man with his project. Sometimes my guys are creative, sometimes.

Christmas Eve - " 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse...." We all know the real poem, but today, wow, was interesting, maybe. It certainly wasn't all exactly what I had planned. Nothing major went wrong, I guess, unless you consider the sick people in my house. Keturah stayed in bed all day, not eating anything, but we were able to get her to church and she suffered through it. She went to bed straight away afterwards at 5:30 and will probably sleep the rest of the night. Jared is still miserable. He took a long drive to Greenwood for more paintbrushes and to the post office for me, and then worked on his project for a bit. He cleaned up a bit for church, but said he almost fell asleep in church. He went straight to bed when we got home and has been there ever since. Benaiah got up and went to work and didn't get home until nearly 8. They had so many catering orders that they couldn't start their closing routine before they closed. But he came home bearing gifts - a whole pan of the best mac and cheese (but I won't take the risk of eating it this time), a big bag of cookies, and 3 salads with some chicken strips for his own dinner. I guess they were feeling quite generous tonight. I would say it would be helpful for us tomorrow, but we still have a fridge full of meat that no one seems to want to eat. Actually, everyone keeps saying they aren't hungry and yet, it's not like they are eating cookies left and right, because I won't let them.

Abishai and I were the bearers of Christmas Spirit and at least we tried to wrap gifts together, snuggle, read Christmas books, do our advent calendars, play, etc. I even got to hold him during church. He loved holding the candle all by his big self. We sat in the front row of the back half of the auditorium so he could roll around a bit and he sat himself down in the middle aisle to watch the singing a few times. I wasn't as frustrated as I had been in the past with him, so that's good. We had some cute moments together, which helped me not totally lose my cool. I almost did when Jared and I argued in the car on the way home from church. I asked one question, he wanted Justin to clarify, but of course Justin couldn't hear him because Jared is hoarse, etc. etc. and Jared got so mad that he didn't play nice with the van. I was very displeased with his behavior and it started triggering me into a pity party. I've done all the wrapping, all the baking, all the cooking, all the planning, I'll do all the packing, all the clean up, etc. etc. And now, I'm coming down with the sickness so I'm going to probably feel overwhelmed and not thanked enough come Thursday. So, I went to the bathroom to be left alone, but snapped out of it when I was afraid Abishai was peeking into the gifts. He's been pretty good about not touching things or leaving the room when I've asked him to. By then Jared and Keturah were asleep, and there were things to do, so there was no point in continuing on in the pity party.

It's just hard. None of the teens want to help. Jared is trying but is really sick and his back is really tweaked out. I'm afraid now for him and all the driving to NOLA. After our trip to NH, maybe we'll get an air miles card like Gary and start flying more. These long road trips are pretty bad on us. Speaking of road trips, Gary and Leah made it to NOLA in record time, leaving at 6am and arriving at 5:30pm. Yes, that's 11 1/2 hrs with stops. That's nuts! The shortest route is 11 1/2 of NORMAL driving hrs. Yup, speedy gonzales was at it again. I told them we won't be leaving until 9am and at our normal pace, it will probably be 1am before we get there. And we realized that Benaiah can't drive the rental because he's under 25, so he's no help. Sigh. Anyway, I'm worried that Gary is super excited for this Christmas and my family has been so sick, so blech, so uncooperative and kind that it's going to ruin the mood. And that will be embarrassing.

Yes, it's been so saddening this month to be around sick kids, moody kids, unhelpful kids, ungrateful kids and have no other family to get excited with. It reminds me a lot of my growing up years and some of my current relationships with my siblings, and it's both scary and heartbreaking. Ooooo, I got it! Before they can open a gift, they have to genuinely compliment another person or two. (They only get 3 gifts, so that's fair). And I think I'll also try to get Jared to get them to say thank you to me as well for pulling it altogether. I like doing it WITH the kids and they have helped me wrap and bake in the past. I don't why this year is so different. Am I no fun to be around? Am I too picky? Do they watch too much TV where the kids think ill of their parents? I think I'll just ignore the bad attitudes and focus on kids that care like Abishai who enthusiastically talks about gifts and his Sunday School lesson that "Jesus is the best present ever!" He even wanted to take communion tonight, so we tried to quickly explain why he couldn't and what he would need to do and he immediately said, "Well, then I want to get baptized!" Lol, no sweetie, there's a lot more to it, but we are glad you made a connection.When I asked him what the favorite part of the service was, he said the lighting of candles. I asked why and he said because they look like the candles they had in Egypt with Pharoah (on the Bible stories app he reads with Daddy at night) where it helps to explain light and darkness. Woah! 4 1/2 yr old, slow down! I can't keep up with your memory! I gotta get this kid started on memory work! He even said that the candles in the app were already on and ours wasn't. It's so hard sometimes to not favor Abishai over the others. He has so many advantages in being the baby of the family with such a large age gap. But, he teaches us a lot, too, and I try to use the same new skills I'm using with him to retrain the older kids, but it's more frustrating and takes longer. I had to completely shut down any more talk about how much sugar Keturah eats. And I'll probably shut down any talk on how dumb Justin is. Jared and I both speak too negatively without balancing it positively. It's so hard to make these changes with ingrained behavior.  So hard. But I'll keep trying.

So while I had a great day through church service, it's been hard to stay positive since. Just typing that all out is triggering and bringing back childhood memories of fighting and emotional pain. I don't know why this year is so much tougher than past years because no one died this year, but this is where we are at. Pray for us to be kind to one another. Pray for immune systems to fully kick in and kills these germs (maybe a change of scenery will be good for both of these things, although I am embarrassed and upset that I know Gary will be displeased with our parenting when he sees where we are at right now.) Pray that new memories are made. And pray that 2020 is a totally different year than 2019 was.

Instagram had some great content today! Go to: https://www.instagram.com/p/B6d8HYilKoR/ to see a recap of the last Crave of 2019.

This guy was THE lead for kitchen tonight. He closed the kitchen for the night and had to make sure nothing was going to spoil tomorrow when they are closed. Woot! Woot!

Actually, totally not ok, but that's another story. Now I have to go print off things or rewrap things I bought myself while he sleeps.

It takes a lot of you if you are the only one participating in making Christmas happen.

Very foggy morning because the temperatures will reach 50 degrees or higher today. It feels more like Easter in Canada than it does Christmas.

He loves the warm vent and I think he's checking on Keturah.

I guess we make great places for guys to hang out on.  But, I compared Daddy's belly to the worm creature that the Millennium Falcon lands in on the asteroid in Star Wars Episode 5.  It's a little weird to walk on!

Yeah!

Abishai had a whole elaborate story going.

King

"I have to do a challenge, Mommy." Ok, Mr. Generation YouTube. He wanted all three noise making Christmas items to be making noise at the same time.

Java Jingle was ok. I think it was supposed to have a rum flavor to it. I downed it quickly so I could get to wrapping but got to talk to Jared for a bit while I drank it.

Working hard on his project which will be revealed on Friday.

71 degrees at their lunch stop a few hours from NOLA.

They used the white sheet again at church like they did this summer for the youth group's big worship service. They started with a solo about light with the one light showing through.

Very pretty.

Abishai took this picture! He asked to take one, and I said sure! Sweet! I was directly behind the camera and didn't have a great view at all.

I had to lean way into Keturah to get this one. These were taken during the first 5 minutes of the service, then I put the phone away.

Awwww, great picture! Abishai dressed himself, too. He had to climb up to get a shirt, and he picked the Colts one. It has a hole in it, but I didn't care. And then he put on some house/pj pants. None of us really dressed up since half of us didn't feel great.

Justin and his candle.

Keturah, who didn't want a candle, reluctantly looking at it. She didn't sing or stand during the service.

I had to get Abishai to turn towards the candle, but he finally did. Sweet.  He almost bumped his hair into it though. That was a scary moment for Mommy.

Who needs coats when it's 55 degrees when you leave the Christmas Eve service at 5pm. Not us!

Traditional Howell Christmas Eve before or after Christmas Eve church service meal. Except, I was the only one who ate it. Jared and Keturah were asleep. Justin wasn't hungry. Abishai only ate some ham. And Benaiah ate CFA. This makes me extremely sad. My kids like this meal. Or at least they used to. And spicy brown mustard was my Dad's mustard of choice and it's hard to have this meal without it. I think I squeezed out the last few drops of it. No one else uses it. But I did find a gluten free version of "rye" bread with seeds and it tasted great. I only defrosted the two pieces I need so I could enjoy it later. This was even the right brand of rye bread! Although we always had the one with seeds. I know my kids don't particularly like seeds, so I got it without. Sometimes it was dark rye or pumpernickel. I picked up the first thing I saw. And that's muenster cheese. Did you know that Kroger doesn't sell prepackaged sliced muenster cheese? Aldi's does! So I usually have it in the house all the time so it's no longer just a Christmas cheese. I think it's just as mild as provolone, the Johnson favorite.

Um, yeah, we are blessed to have a whole pan of the best mac and cheese from any fast food restaurant because it's REAL cheese folks! And baked! I'm jealous I can't have any.

Where is Santa now?  We haven't followed him much this year.

Oooo, nice shot!

The boy of Christmas present. My little Elf. My Christmas joy. I am living this Christmas through his eyes.He insisted that the reindeer have big carrots and the candy canes. And he choose regular milk instead of egg nog. Yes, Santa got a Chick-Fil-A cookie and an R2-D2 cookie this year! Way to go, Santa!

Abishai got the coloring page at church tonight, so it made the perfect thing to leave for Santa.

Yikes! He's in Canada! Better get to bed quick! I should have taken a picture of the stack of books that Abishai and I read tonight. I haven't read any Christmas books to him, so I grabbed my favorites and did just that. I ended with one that told about Jesus being the best present of all.

I looked just in time to see Santa fly over my sister's house!

So close!

There it is! Manchester, NH!

Again, this was the service intro this past Sunday! Go to Instagram to see it! The voice overs are the best! They don't usually put these up on social media but there were many requests of it. Another PK gets center stage early on his life! Hudson is the one boy in the lighter sweater and talks about his hair, of course, because he has a lot of it and talks about his Dad talking to someone about signs. Hehehe. Check it out! https://www.instagram.com/p/B6diTk-FqsI/

He's almost here!

Santa's been here!

The End